Yogurt can help women prevent HIV

Lactobacillus, a harmless bacterium that helps milk turn into yogurt, can be genetically engineered to produce

Cyanovirin-N gene (Photo: nature.com)

substances that prevent HIV transmission. The special thing is, this bacterium can live in female vagina.

In addition to yogurt, lactobacillus can also live in the human vagina. They can survive through the stomach and easily enter the vagina from the anus. Once in the vagina, genetically modified lactobacillus can secrete compounds that interfere with HIV penetration, thereby preventing the risk of infection for women when they have sex.

Peter Lee and colleagues at Stanford University, California (USA) have implanted a gene called cyanovirin-N into the main chromosome strand of lactobacillus bacteria. After that, the team put bacteria into milk to make yogurt and feed the mice. The results showed that the substances that genetically modified lactobacillus produced prevented the spread of HIV in experimental mice.

" This is a breakthrough ," said Jim Turpin, senior expert at the US National Institutes of Health. The advantage of this method is that lactobacillus bacteria can survive for many days in the human esophagus, so users do not need to eat yogurt daily.

Viet Linh